Faith's Reality
by Kat Lee formerly Pirate Turner
Summary: Reality's a bitca.


Title: "Faith's Reality"  
Author: Pirate Turner  
Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Reality's a bitch.  
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, names, codenames, places, items, fandoms, titles, and etc. are always © & TM their respective owners, not the author, and are used without permission. Any and all original characters and everything else is © & TM the author and may not be reproduced in any way without the author's express, written permission. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.  
Author's Note: 244. That's the number of stories that were sitting on my hard drive collecting dust because I lack the energy and time to take care of them as I once did. My betaing pattern has always been to write, then type up if written on paper, the story, read it aloud to my beloved Jack and our children, editing as I go, and then finally format and post. Sadly, this part is simply taking too much of my time and energy, and my beloved Jack and I have too little time together in person these days to be able to keep up with my stories. So what to do? Give up writing? I actually considered it for a while, tried to make excuses to myself other than the large number of stories collecting cyber dust on my computer, as to why I lacked the energy and Muse to write new tales. And then, with the turn of the new year, I decided to stop running and face the problem. The problem is, quite frankly, that once one gets so bogged down in formatting and editing that writing is no longer a pleasure but the actual posting of those writings becomes a hassle and - egad! - work, it's time to cut something out, and that will never be the writing process. So, in short, yes, there will be mistakes in this tale. Yes, it's missing about half of the header information I usually include. But I wrote it for pleasure and am posting it in hopes of sharing that pleasure with others. Do with it as you will.

Buffy thinks she's the coolest and best Vampire Slayer to ever wield a stake and try to kick ass. It's one of the many things that aggravate Faith about her to no end, but she doesn't bother to tell her that she's cooler. It should be obvious to anybody with half a brain that Faith's tougher, meaner, and more bad ass than the blonde Slayer will ever be. All these attributes and more automatically make Faith the best, and cooler, Slayer, but coolness doesn't matter to her. She is what she is, and cool just happens to be a part of her package.

She's tired of hearing Buffy prattle on about how good she is, how many Vampires she's staked, and how often she's made sacrifices to save the world. She's tired of hearing the blonde speak and wishes she could ram her stake down her throat, but it isn't simply because of how proud Buffy is or how she thinks she's so cool. That adds to Faith's frustration with her, but it's only a small amount of why she's always so quick to bite Buffy's head off verbally and remind her that she isn't as cool as she thinks she is.

Buffy also thinks she's the first Slayer to have friends, to have a support group. Faith knows better, even if the Council doesn't. She knows the Council wouldn't approve of Buffy's little "Scooby Gang" any more than they would have approved of the other Slayer who had a support group, who had friends and family laying their lives on the line with her every night, and or of her methods. Faith doesn't approve of her methods any more, either, which is a kick in ass, because they were her methods.

She's the older Slayer. She's the one who was called, and killed, before Buffy, allowing for the blonde to be called and Kendra later to be added to the long list of women to die slaying for a world that's too stupid to open its eyes to the blood suckers that prey upon it. She doesn't know if she's the first Slayer to have friends and family who supported and helped her in battle, but she does believe she's the first one to get her Watcher killed, and her mother, and the few friends with whom she grew up.

She hears their voices every day. She remembers all that her Watcher tried to teach her with each Vampire she stakes. She hears her voice in her head telling her when to move, how to act and react, and when to drive the stake home. She sees her mother's face in the mirror every time she dares to look in it. And every moment of every day and night, Faith remembers.

She remembers what it was like to be loved. She remembers what it was like to be trusted and cared for, to have people who loved her so much that they refused to live her alone and let her fight her own battles. She remembers believing she'd never be alone, and she remembers watching every one of them who loved her, and who she loved, be killed until at last, when it was just her, her father, and her "little sister" left, Faith broke and ran.

She's still running to this day. She keeps a check on them. She slinks back home from time to time just to make sure they're still breathing. She'll always watch over them as best she can from a distance, but the way she can help them best now, she knows, after being coated with the blood of so many she's loved, is to stay away from them and not let the creatures of the night know what they mean to her, to say she has no one when she knows they'd both still lay down their lives for her, to pretend to be, and want to be, all alone.

That's the true reason why she's so angry with Buffy: Buffy has all that she once had, and so far, she's managed to keep it. She's still got her mother, her Watcher, and her friends. She's precariously balancing a life slaying and going to school, something Faith quit within the first month of becoming a Vampire Slayer to study full time with her Watcher, who also was supposed to teach her family and friends, after they discovered what she was doing, how to protect themselves.

She was supposed to teach them how to stay safe from the Vampires and other monsters Faith fights. She tried to. Faith guesses she didn't do a good enough job of teaching them how to protect themselves. She should have forced them away from her. She should have made sure they wouldn't become targets because of Faith. She should have taken Faith out of their lives, or them out of her life. If she had, they'd still be alive.

If she'd done her job properly, as she's heard Giles refer to the duty he knows he should fulfill of separating Buffy and the others, her mother wouldn't have been killed, her head dropped into her lap. Her friends wouldn't have been slaughtered. Her first lover would never have been turned.

Yes, Faith guesses her Watcher didn't do a good enough job. She should be angry with her for allowing her family and friends to put their lives on the line when it wasn't their place, when they weren't the ones called to be Slayers, but she can't be angry with her even if she should be.

She can't be angry with her, because Faith knows why her friends and family were slaughtered. She knows the reason their blood was spilled, why she was covered in it. They were killed because of her. They were killed, because they couldn't stop loving, and in so doing, trying to protect her. They were killed, because Faith couldn't say "no" or separate herself from them.

They were killed for the same reason Buffy's friends will one day be killed one by one. She'll see them all fall, just as Faith did. Her jokes will stop then. Her pride will crumble, just like Faith's did. She'll finally know she's not the biggest, baddest thing to wield a stake, that she's no better than any other Slayer who's come before or will come after her. Her mouth will shut. She'll withdraw within herself.

That should make Faith happy. She'd still love to shove her stake down her throat to shut the babbling blonde up, but she doesn't want anybody else to suffer like she has, not really. She doesn't want anybody else to know the pain, heartache, and grief that comes with losing every one you've ever loved and who's loved you. She doesn't want to share her pain. She just wants Buffy to shut the Hell up and leave her the Hell alone, like the rest of the world finally has, but she knows, regrettably, she won't do it until the dark days hit again.

**The End**


End file.
